Biological Factors Involved in Stress

Biological Factors Involved in Stress

Introduction

In today's fast paced life where almost everyone and anyone, regardless of their age, class or income is running around just to make the ends meet. In such a highly volatile environment stress a broadly used term has become a common element in our lives. In general context, stress can be defined as a negative concept having significant impact not only on a person's mental but also his or her physical health. Even with all the progress that since has made over the years, even today it is still hard to define what exactly is the underlying root cause of stress. In human beings stress can have concrete or even abstract meaning based on their various other underlying factors Moffitt et al, (2003).

We all tend to talk about stress; however it's usually not clear what stress is actually about. For some stress can merely be a result of an incident that happened to them, while for others stress is related to what actually happens to their mind, body or behaviour. Stress can sometimes prove to be a grave cause of concern. Stress can sometimes prove to be a grave cause of concern resulting in a number of physical and emotional setbacks. Some of these include concerns as serious as stroke, heart attacks, anxiety, depression, herpes, cancer and even hypertension. Nonetheless, stress is indeed a normal part of an individual's life. According to experts stress in small quantities can be stimulating, hence motivating you in turn to become more productive. However, an excess of it can sometime prove to be fatal (Steptoe, & Ayers, 2004).

Nonetheless, stress is indeed a normal part of an individual's life. According to experts stress in small quantities can be stimulating, hence motivating you in turn to become more productive. However, an excess of it can sometime prove to be fatal. How we perceive a stress provoking event and how we react to it determines its impact on our health. Hence, from the viewpoint of an optimistic, we can either be motivated by stressful events in our lives or on the contrary, we might even respond in a manner that may result in having a negative effect on our physical, mental, and social well-being (Rinaldis, 2001).

Discussion

The influence of stress processes on health and risk of disease is studied from a variety of perspectives using animal models, epidemiological survey techniques, clinical investigations and laboratory experiments. There are two broad approaches to studying these effects in humans. The first is to assess the impact of particular categories of potentially stressful conditions and the second is to investigate the aetiology of specific diseases. Many studies have shown that stress and morbidity are associated, but this does not necessarily mean that stress plays a causal role (Jeffery, 2003). There are a number of difficulties in establishing a definitive link. Firstly, the diseases in which stress is implicated are typically multifactorial, with a range of genetic, biological and environmental ...